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Commentary No. 381, July 15, 2014
"Germany and the United States:
Unprecedented Breach"
On July 10, the German government demanded
the immediate departure of the head of the CIA mission in Berlin. Such demands
are not unusual, even between ostensible allies. What is unusual is that it
should be publicly announced, and with much fanfare. What accounts for what
some are already calling an "unprecedented breach" in the very close
relations after 1945 between the United States and the German Federal Republic?
It only took one day for the subject to
become the occasion of two major articles, one an op-ed in the Los Angeles
Times and the other a major story in Germany's Der Spiegel. Both are
pessimistic that the unprecedented breach can be swiftly, if ever, repaired.
The op-ed in the Los Angeles Times,
written by Jacob Heilbrun, was entitled "The German-American
Breakup." The word "breakup" is unequivocal, or almost. After an
overview of various German commentaries, Heilbrun ends with this admonition:
"If Obama is unable to rein in spying of
Germany, he may discover that he is helping to convert it from an ally into an
adversary. For Obama to say Auf Wiedersehen to a longtime ally would
deliver a blow to American national security that no amount of secret information
could possibly justify."
If Heilbrun seems
to have little hope that his viewpoint will be heard in Washington, it pales
before the lead article in Der Spiegel on the same date. The long
article is entitled "Germany's Choice: Will It Be America or Russia?"
One section of the article is entitled "The Last Straw." It cites not
someone on the left or someone who has long advocated closer relations with
Russia. It cites instead a conservative advocate of the free economy and of
rocksolid relations with the United States, who chairs an organization called
Atlantic Bridge. In a tone of desperation, he says: "If [the latest
allegations about spying] turn out to be true, it's time for this to
stop." Note that the article says it's time for it to stop, not that it's
time for further discussions or negotiations about it. Just stop.
One last poignant detail: The U.S. ambassador
to Germany speaks no German. The Russia ambassador is so fluent one scarcely
notices his accent. Entrance to the U.S. Ambassador's office is protected by
the highest-level security possible, surpassing that which governs the entrance
to the White House's Oval Office. Entrance to the Russian embassy is so casual
that it prompts disbelief.
Is this unprecedented breach so sudden and so
unpredictable? By now, every major or minor paper in Germany, the United
States, France, Great Britain and elsewhere is featuring the story, analyzing
the causes, and preaching the solution. Above all, most articles are searching
for whom to blame. The principal suspects are the National Security Agency
(NSA) and President Obama. But is it simply the unwise decisions of the NSA or
of Obama? In other words, could it have been different? Well, surely in detail.
The U.S. government has been stupid and very clumsy. However, the problem is
structural and not the passing mistakes and stupidity of those in power in the
United States.
The basic problem is that the United States
is, and has been for some time, in geopolitical decline. It doesn't like this.
It doesn't really accept this. It surely doesn't know how to handle it, that
is, minimize the losses to the United States. So it keeps trying to restore
what is unrestorable - U.S. "leadership" (read: hegemony) in the
world-system. This makes the United States a very dangerous actor. No small number of political agents in the United States are calling
for some sort of decisive "action" - whatever that could possibly
mean. And U.S. elections may depend in large part on how U.S. political actors
play this game.
That is what Europeans in general, and now
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in particular, are realizing. The United
States has become a very unreliable "partner." So even those in
Germany and elsewhere in Europe who are nostalgic for the warm embrace of the
"free world" are reluctantly joining the less nostalgic others in
deciding how they can survive geopolitically without the United States. And
this is pushing them into the logical alternative, a European tent that
includes Russia.
As the Germans, and
the Europeans in general, move inexorably in this direction, they have their
hesitations. If they can no longer trust the United States, could they really
trust Russia? And, more importantly, could they make a deal with the Russians
that the Russians would find it worthwhile and necessary to observe? You can
bet that this is what is being discussed in the inner circles of the German
government today, and not how to repair the irreparable breach of trust with
the United States.
by Immanuel Wallerstein
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence
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These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on
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